


Antoine's Secret

by captainstarspangled



Category: Antoine Griezmann - Fandom, Football - Fandom, Soccer - Fandom
Genre: Anorexia, Crying, Eating Disorders, Fluff, Hurt/Comfort, Men Crying
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-22
Updated: 2016-06-22
Packaged: 2018-07-16 14:05:01
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,795
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7271302
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/captainstarspangled/pseuds/captainstarspangled
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Antoine exercises a bit too much for their taste.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Antoine's Secret

**Author's Note:**

> promt from Shay :) prompts are still open.

Didier wanted them to stay fit during the summer time. And that’s how they ended up in a hotel in Marseille for two weeks during July.  
It had been a year since Antoine had last seen his National Team friends. He had taken a flight up to Marseille and then rented a car, so he was the first one to arrive. He was told that his team would arrive soon, so instead of going up to his room already, he decided to wait for them on the couch in the lobby.  
“Oh my god guys it’s Grizi,” Olivier screamed in a high pitched voice and walked towards the boy. Antoine looked up from his phone to see the older man walking towards the couch he was sitting on, pulling a big suitcase with him. He let go of that one just when he approached the boy. “Come on boy, let me hug you,” he said and Antoine put his phone away and got up. Olivier pulled him into a tight hug.  
“Hi Oli,” Antoine said in a cheery voice and with a smile on his face.  
“Damn. Aren’t you hot?” Olivier had pulled back to look at his friend. That one was wearing a pair of black skinny jeans and white sneakers along with a too big plain grey sweatshirt. He remembered that sweatshirt from the year before, the boy loved it.  
“Not at all,” Antoine said. “Aren’t you cold?” Olivier was wearing jeans shorts and a tank top, and just flip flops. Grizi looked around the lobby. They were alone here. “Where are the others?”  
“Went up to their rooms already. Come on, we’re sharing.” Olivier smiled at him and got two key cards out of his pocket.  
Antoine’s eyes grew big. He’d thought he’d have a room to himself. “Okay,” he smiled up at his friend and then got up too. He took the suitcase next to the couch he’d been sitting on and a few minutes later, they were standing in front of the door of their hotel room.  
Olivier opened up. The room consisted of two beds, two closets and aa shared bathroom with a bathtub and a shower in it. Antoine was more than happy with that bathtub.  
Olivier left his suitcase in front of the bed and then laid down on it, but Antoine couldn’t do that. He filled up the closet with all of his stuff and then did the same with the bathroom drawer.  
“Why don’t you relax a little Grizi? It’s our last day off,” Oli said and as the boy was just finished, he laid down on his own bed.  
“What do you want to eat tonight? Didi said if we want to look at the city, we should do that today because we have a very tight schedule next week.”  
Antoine shrugged. “I don’t care, nothing too heavy,” he said.  
“Alright, you say it.”  
They spent the reminder of the afternoon watching TV. At around six, Antoine’s stomach grumbled loud enough for his friends in Madrid to hear.  
“We should go and eat,” Olivier suggested at that. Antoine nodded.  
They ended up walking a bit through the city before sitting down in the back of an Italian restaurant. While Olivier went with a mixed salad for starters and a pizza, Antoine went with just a caesar’s salad.  
“I never knew you ate with your left hand,” Olivier said while biting on his pizza and Antoine shrugged.  
“I do that sometimes, I felt like I should train it a little,” he explained. It took him a few minutes longer than Olivier to finish but none of them really cared.  
While they were paying, Antoine’s phone rang and he picked up quickly. It was Laurent to ask them where they were and tell them to come back to the hotel bar. The would be there and when Antoine told Oli, the man got rather excited.  
They were back in the hotel in none less than ten minutes and found their mates at a round table in the bar. There were exactly two seats left at the table, between Dimitri and Hugo. While Olivier sat down next to Hugo, Antoine sat down next to Dimitri.  
The waiter approached them some time later. While his friends all ordered a beer, Antoine went with a glass of ice cold water. He received a few laughs at his order. He mumbled something about health that no one actually listened to.  
He didn’t talk if no one asked him anything and just quietly sipped on his water. He checked his watch when he was finished. It was 9:15pm. He poked Olivier’s shoulder.  
“When are we gonna start tomorrow?”  
“Breakfast at seven and training at eight,” Olivier informed him and Antoine nodded, pushed his glass to the middle of the table.  
“I’m gonna head to bed,” he said loudly enough for everyone to hear. He heard a few goodnights, but when he passed Laurent on his way out, the man pulled him down at his arm.  
“Are you okay?”  
“Of course, just tired.”

Antoine woke to Olivier shaking his shoulder. “Hey shorty. It’s 6:50. If you want to get breakfast you should hurry up,” he said and Antoine just threw the blanket over his head.  
“Just a few more minutes,” he said and as an answer got exactly what he wanted to hear.  
“Okay, just make sure you’re on the pitch at 8. I’m gonna eat now,” Olivier said.  
Antoine shot out of bed when he heard the door click. He went to his closet to get his training outfit for the day and then stepped under a cold shower. His body care routine that he had established lately for the mornings took him almost half an hour. It included shaving his legs (because let’s face it, sweat and hair don’t play well together), lotion because his skin had been incredibly dry lately, taping his feet because he’d had dozens of blisters lately and a couple of other strange things. He got dressed: shinpads and training socks pulled up to over his knees, the official training shorts which were too big and reached below his knees, the official training shirt with a synthetic sweatshirt underneath (which didn’t matter because his shirt was too big anyways) and the jacket of his training suit. He was still shivering after putting all of that on though, the cold showers every morning usually kept him cold for an hour. After that, he did some stretching and when he checked the time then, it was 7:30.  
That was simply perfect in his opinion: He could now take a run for the time until his mates would arrive. He ran around the pitch next to the hotel and was quite absent, so he didn’t fully realise that he could stop running when Didier came up to him. “You’re early,” the coach told his youngster when he’d approached him.  
“Yeah,” the boy said awkwardly and then offered his coach some help. They managed to finish setting up the whole circuit before the team arrived.  
When they eventually did arrive though and Olivier went up to Antoine to put a hand on his shoulder. “You didn’t eat breakfast,” he stated.  
“Yeah, I took a shower and then a run.”  
Olivier looked down at the boy. His beard was longer than ever right now. “You look pale,” he told the boy.  
“Haven’t been in the sun a lot lately,” Antoine explained himself.  
They first had to do some warm up exercises and then split into groups of four to do the training circuit.  
Antoine just remained standing where he was. Dimitri, Laurent and Olivier came up to him automatically. They were usually in a group. Sometimes with Hugo too, but he was in the goal today.  
The exercises Didier had planned for today were mostly focused on body usage during the game. They were told to use their body weight as much as possible.  
So in one of the exercises, Antoine was standing next to Olivier in a little field and waiting for a ball to be kicked into it. And it did, eventually. Antoine was now fully focused on it. When he was about to take the ball with his chest, he felt a sudden push to his side and then flew today side and on the ground. His ribs hurt. He closed his eyes for a moment to overcome the short wave of pain that hit him now. “Jesus Grizi are you okay?” Antoine opened his eyes to find Olivier staring at him. “You just kinda flew away.” The man looked worried, literally. He stretched a hand out to Antoine and helped him up. “It’s boiling out here. Why are your hands so cold? You should be sweating with everything you’re wearing,” the man pointed out. He himself was wearing just the shirt and the shorts. “Are you sick?”  
“No,” Antoine said quickly. “I was about to take my jacket off,” he added and did just that.  
“Jesus even a sweater? Something’s wrong with you kiddo,” Olivier said laughing and walked away.  
“Okay boys. Go get some lunch and have a break, we’re meeting here again at 3.”  
While they were walking back to the hotel, Hugo laid an arm around Antoine’s shoulder, making him flinch. “How have you been kiddo?” Antoine hated it when the boys called him kiddo. He knew that he was the smallest and usually acted like the youngest but now he was older.  
The lunch buffet was huge. While all the other boys filled their plates until there was no space anymore, Antoine decided on just getting some vegetables with chicken.  
“Aren’t you hungrier than that?” Dimitri asked once they’d sat down. Antoine shook his head and sat down. He ate slowly and was only half way through with his plate when the others got up to get more. He didn’t notice the looks most of his team mates gave him while they were eating.  
It was about one when they were finished with lunch and Olivier and Antoine went up to their room to get some sleep. Antoine woke again about 15 minutes later and waited for a few minutes to see if Olivier would awake too, but when he didn’t, Antoine decided to go downstairs and into the gym. He ran on the treadmill, always lifting the level whenever he got too used to it.  
When Dimitri entered the gym about half an hour later, without Antoine noticing, the man was practically sprinting already. And even sweating. He hadn’t done that in quite some time. It was cold sweat though.  
“Why are you down here?” Dimitri asked and out of shock, Antoine almost fell. He turned off the treadmill and there were some white points in his eyesight, he felt like he was going to pass out soon. He held on tightly to the bar next to the treadmill. “Are you okay?” Dimitri rushed over to him and help onto the boys side.  
“I’m fine, I was just taking a run,” Antoine explained himself and luckily, won his full eyesight back before anything worse could happen.  
“Come on, let’s go up to the pitch,” Dimitri suggested and took the earphones, which he’d forgot and come down here for again. The two men walked up to the pitch and had to wait only a few minutes until the others arrived there.  
The afternoon training session wasn’t very exhausting. It consisted of some game segments.  
They were finished at around four and dinner was supposed to start at 6:30, so Antoine decided to go back down to the gym again. “I’m going down to the wellness area,” he told Olivier on their way back to the hotel He had said wellness area because well, what would Olivier think of him if he went to the him after 5 hours of training?  
“Okay, I’m coming with you,” Olivier said the words that Antoine had feared the most. The problem was that now, he couldn’t talk himself out of it because he couldn’t say that he would go to the gym but he also felt didn’t want Olivier to see his body; he hated it, literally. He felt like the excess fat sticking out at his hips showed just how pathetic he was with all his cravings. And his stomach, he couldn’t even start thinking about it.  
So he went with it. They both took a shower, Antoine an ice cold one of course and then went, with bath robes on, down to the spa area of the hotel. They were given a towel to put on over their hips when they’d get a massage. There were single fitting rooms and after they both got changed and Olivier looked at Antoine, he gasped. “Jesus Antoine what happened to you?”  
“I know… I’m working on it,” he said quietly and then went towards the massaging table where he laid down and got his back massaged.

The next four days went on like that. Olivier had told some of his team mates, mostly those who cared the most about Antoine and shockingly found some other suspicious actions of the boy. They tried to convince him to eat more throughout meals, but the boy found clever excuses as to why he couldn’t eat. This went on until Thursday after the afternoon training when Antoine was just finished with taking a shower and had a towel around his hips, when there was a knock at the door.  
“Antoine can I come in?” Olivier asked but entered the bathroom before the younger one could answer.  
Antoine shrieked. “No, let me put my clothes on first,” he said quickly and wanted to walk back to where he had put his clothes but Olivier said something before he could start walking.  
“Leave that,” Olivier said and walked over to Antoine who was standing in front of the mirror. The bathroom was huge. It was at least as big as a normal hotel room and the mirror had two sinks in front of it so the two men could see each other in it now.  
“Tell me what you see,” Olivier said. He could barely look at his friend, it made him feel sick.  
Antoine looked into the mirror for a long time. Tears started to well up in his eyes. But Olivier wouldn’t let him off the hook so easily. He would let him have all the time he’d need though. “I see a 25 year old man with the body of a 50 year old,” Antoine said then, letting all his bottled up courage out.  
“Grizi… Do you want to know what I see?” Olivier said and looked at his friend again.  
Antoine shrugged. “Why not.”  
“I see a… broken young man. It’s not Antoine Griezmann. I don’t know that man. His ribs stick out of his chest and his hip bones are visible. He should shave his face and cut his hair. And he should eat more. He has bruises on his chest because of a single massage. And I want to help him.” The silent tears were making their way down Antoine’s face now.  
“I’m sorry,” he said. Antoine looked miserable and Olivier couldn’t stand seeing him like that, so he pulled him into a hug. The boy sniffled against the taller one’s chest. He still didn’t see himself like that yet, but he had felt the hurt clearly in Olivier’s voice.  
When he was calmed down enough, Antoine got dressed into his training suit, which was now hanging off his body loosely, and shaved his face for the first time in two weeks. And he knew immediately why he hadn’t shaved it: his face looked horrible. His jawline and cheekbones were clearly visible and he had bags under his eyes. Maybe that was what he needed because he accepted the help offered by his friends now.  
He just stood there in front of the mirror, looking at his face. He was crying again and once Olivier heard him sniffle, he rushed in again and pulled the boy into another tight hug.  
“Offer us to help you Grizi. We’re worried about you. Please,” Olivier said and Antoine didn’t answer, he couldn’t. He was sick.  
And in the following days, Antoine’s friends ate three meals a day with him. They looked at what he ate and made sure it was enough. Antoine would cry at times when he felt like he’d ate too much.  
Though, Olivier would always tell him what he’d seen in the mirror that day.  
It was a long process. Longer than the time they had together but Antoine’s friends made sure that his friends back in Madrid would take care of him, too.

**Author's Note:**

> I didn't do any research for this. These were my ways. I've been struggling with this for about half a year now. But it's getting better and I'm trying really hard :)


End file.
